Following the critically acclaimed hit premiere stage production of Peter James' The Perfect Murder this year, the best-selling work of the No.1 novelist returns to the stage in 2015 with the adaptation of his most famous and popular book to date and the first book that featured James' now famous character of Detective Roy Grace - Dead Simple.

Michael Harrison has it all; great career, good friends and a beautiful fiancée. But when his stag night prank goes horribly wrong, Michael finds himself alone, buried alive and staring death in the face. As time runs out and the terror grows, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace tries to solve his mysterious disappearance but begins to fear that Michael will never be found in time...

Directed by Olivier award winner Ian Talbot and adapted by award winning writer Shaun McKenna, this gripping, chilling, thriller has all the classic suspense, twists and turns of a best-selling Peter James novel.

International bestselling crime thriller novelist Peter James has had numerous No.1 best sellers around the world, has sold over 14 million books of his Roy Grace series, and is published in 36 languages. He says of today's announcement:

"From the age of eight, when my parents first took me to the Theatre Royal in Brighton, it had been my dream that one day the curtains would rise in a theatre and a play of my work would be performed. That dream came true after a chance meeting with my old friend, producer, Joshua Andrews, at a party in November 2012. Josh had seen first-hand the success of the recent Agatha Christie stage productions and he joked that I was the nearest thing to a living modern day Agatha Christie - so he asked if I had any novels that I felt might adapt well to the stage. The result was the first run of The Perfect Murder, over 16 weeks from early January this year, and to my delight it played to packed houses, enthusiastic audiences and a great critical response around the country and is now set to do more dates this autumn.

"The success of The Perfect Murder on stage, together with the news that my books are soon to be adapted for television and the recent successful release of my latest novel have already made 2014 a wonderful year. It is a real thrill now for Josh and I to be launching our second collaboration, an adaptation by the brilliant Shaun McKenna of my first Roy Grace novel, Dead Simple, a tale of treachery and deceit, which seems to touch a nerve in everyone who reads it and has been one of my best-selling books to date. The story begins with a wedding prank that goes horribly wrong, leaving the groom-to-be buried alive in a coffin in remote woodlands, running out of air, and everyone who knows his whereabouts dead. Everyone except for one person... And Detective Roy Grace has to discover who that one person is before it's too late.

"I had myself locked in a coffin for 30 minutes as part of my research, and it was one of the scariest moments of my life. It's so many people's worst nightmare to be buried alive and I'm looking forward to recreating some of that terror in the theatres soon...!"

Dead Simple is adapted by Shaun McKenna from the novel by Peter James, directed by Ian Talbot and produced by Peter James and Joshua Andrews, the latter of whom is also co-producing a new staging by Benedict Andrews of A Streetcar Named Desire with the Young Vic - the fastest selling show in the theatre's history - which opens next week, starring Gillian Anderson, Ben Foster and Vanessa Kirby and has just announced an 'NT Live' broadcast in cinemas towards the end of its run in September.